Sport Today

by **John Bro** » Sat, 11 May 1991 18:52:00

Well, how about a discussion on great spells by a spin bowler?

My favourite has to be Chandra's performance in the Melbourne Test
against Australia in 77-78. Australia had won the first two tests,
and there were three to go. Both previous games had been close:
First Test (Bris): Aus by 16 runs.
Second Test (Perth): Aus by 2 wkts.
Note, both games on fast pitches. But now the Indian spinners had their
chance...
India thrashed Aus. by 222 runs. Chandra got 6/52 in both innings.
Incredible.
India then won the fourth Test at Sydney by an innings and 2 runs.
What a comeback! What a setting for the final match at Adelaide.

Fittingly, it was a close finish. India were set 493 to win. If they
had achieved that, it would easily have been a record. Amazingly, they
got to 445, losing by just 47 runs. Amarnath, Vengsarkar, Vishy,
and Kirmani got fifties. What a performance!

So, the series finished: 3 very close wins to Aus., 2 thrashings by
India. The best series I have ever seen, by a light year.

Consider the circumstances at the time: Packer had just bought most
of Aust's best players, leaving the Test team in the hands of a
bunch of young, untried players. Nobody was exactly jumping out of
their skins at the thought of the Indian's arrival. (After all, they
couldn't possibly be as interesting as the pyjama circus organized
by Packer!!)

But, the Aussies showed talent and guts. The Indians delighted with
their courageous, top-standard play. Ahhh, thems was the days...
Prasanna, Bedi, Chandra, Venkat... quality spin.. from both ends..
all day... no robotic medium pace troglodites then! This was REAL
cricket. And this was a great Indian team. Perhaps that's why I
have such little regard for the current Indian team: they just
don't have that same quality, or adventure, or ability! That team
bore it right up Packer's self-satisfied circus.

My next favourite was Bob Holland aagainst Windies in the fifth test
at Sydney in 84/85. He ripped the best batting lineup in the world
apart. It was also Clive Lloyd's last game. He held up the 2nd
innings with 70-odd, before he was out, fittingly caught by Border.
It was a memorable moment as he left the ground.

Sorry, I seem to have got off the track. I apologise for the waffling,
but it was a great time. Any other great spin performances, anyone?

Computer Science Dept.,
University of Queensland, Long live the leggie!!!
Australia.

by **The Lemmi** » Sat, 11 May 1991 22:58:19

Quote:

>Sorry, I seem to have got off the track. I apologise for the waffling,
>but it was a great time. Any other great spin performances, anyone?

Borders 8 wickets in Sydney.
Bedi's 12 overs for 6 runs in 75 world cup
Dennis Lillee bowling leg breaks

The Lemming
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The Lemming.
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by **K.Chandra Sekh** » Sun, 12 May 1991 00:06:18

Hirwani's 16 wickets against WI
Sivaramkrishnan's 12 wickets against England(?)
Chandra's 12 wickets for 104 runs against Australia (and many more)

Can someone post great performances of Bedi,Prasanna,Venkat, Dilip Doshi.

K.Chandra Sekhar

by **SXK..** » Sat, 11 May 1991 23:12:38

i feel that any discussion of spin performances should be confined to tests
played away from home. its common knowledge that Indian and Pakistani spinners
get so much help from home pitches that the results are sometimes impossible to
even come close to,in an away test. for example - hirwani's 16 at madras, Siva-
ramakrishnan's 12 at bombay, qadir's 14 or 15 at Lahore(?). in this context,
the indian quartet of spinners must have the most number of matchwinning perfor
mances away from home. chandra's 6-38 at the oval in 1971 comes to mind, when
india won the test after being 72 behind in the 1st innings. can anyone else
cite examples of matchwinning bowling by a spinner away from home?
Sunil Kamath |
Penn State University |

by **Ramprasad Ramakrish** » Sat, 11 May 1991 23:58:49

What about Richie Benauds bowling in 1960 at the Oval.

Ramprasad

by **Atri Indires** » Sun, 12 May 1991 01:57:33

[description of 77-78 Indian tour of Australia deleted]

Quote:

>So, the series finished: 3 very close wins to Aus., 2 thrashings by
>India. The best series I have ever seen, by a light year.

>Consider the circumstances at the time: Packer had just bought most
>of Aust's best players, leaving the Test team in the hands of a
>bunch of young, untried players. Nobody was exactly jumping out of
>their skins at the thought of the Indian's arrival. (After all, they
>couldn't possibly be as interesting as the pyjama circus organized
>by Packer!!)

>But, the Aussies showed talent and guts. The Indians delighted with
>their courageous, top-standard play. Ahhh, thems was the days...
>Prasanna, Bedi, Chandra, Venkat... quality spin.. from both ends..
>all day... no robotic medium pace troglodites then! This was REAL
>cricket. And this was a great Indian team. Perhaps that's why I
>have such little regard for the current Indian team: they just
>don't have that same quality, or adventure, or ability! That team
>bore it right up Packer's self-satisfied circus.

>Computer Science Dept.,
>University of Queensland, Long live the leggie!!!
>Australia.

One of the most remarkable features of the 77-78 series was Bobby Simpson's
come back, as a captain, bowler and batsman, not to mention his fielding. As an
Indian, I only wish he had remained in retirement :-). Does anyone have his
detailed stats for that series?

So, great comebacks from retirement? A less spectacular one that comes to mind
was of Pataudi Jr., to lead India against the West Indies in 1974-75. Another
very memorable series.

Atri Indiresan

by **Ramchandran Padmanabhan (Te** » Sun, 12 May 1991 01:20:12

Quote:

>Hirwani's 16 wickets against WI
>Sivaramkrishnan's 12 wickets against England(?)
>Chandra's 12 wickets for 104 runs against Australia (and many more)

>Can someone post great performances of Bedi,Prasanna,Venkat, Dilip Doshi.

>K.Chandra Sekhar

When India beat NZ at Auckland in 1976, Chandra took 6 in the first innings
and Prasanna returned his career best figures (8/76) in the second.
The spin combination plus centuries by Gavaskar and Surinder Amarnath in
the first innings helped India win the test by 8 wickets.
Incidently, S. Amarnath, Vengsarkar and Kirmani made their debuts in this
test. M. Amarnath was playing his second test match, having made his debut
7 years back against Australia (1969).

by **Martin Tayl** » Sun, 12 May 1991 07:30:47

Sunil Kamath says:
can anyone else
cite examples of matchwinning bowling by a spinner away from home?
============
I don't have statistics, but surely Ramadhin and Valentine of the great
West Indian team with the three W's (1947?) must be in there a lot of
times. Didn't they each bowl 90 overs in one innings (perhaps that's
not match-winning, but it's memorable--if my memory is right).

Anyone have the correct information about this pair? I remember that
one of them (R?) was said to have an unusual kind of disguised spin,
not a googly, but with an unexpected direction of turn like a googly.

Sorry to be so vague.
--

BUGS
Skipping backwards is too slow on large files. (man "more")
I'll bet!

by **Pathikrit Bandyopadhy** » Sun, 12 May 1991 01:39:12

when ever somebody mentions chandra the only spell i remember is the one in calcutta.
i do not remember the year, it was sometime in the seventies. it was against wi. india
won by some 30 odd runs. m. a. k. pataudi was indian captain, and clive lloyd was
the wi captain. in the test before that chandra took quite a thrashing from wi team
and clive was pretty confident about their ability against chandra. it was the last
innings. both the teams have a chance to bag the test. pataudi brings in chandra.
again he gets beaten up badly. the whole stadium is chanting remove chandra.
everybody in the stadium understands cricket better than the man in charge and
is getting mad at both pataudi and chandra. then comes that over. as i remember
(that means i may not have happened this way exactly.)first two balls chandra was
driven to the boundary with powerfull shots from lloyd. third ball, he blocks.
fourth ball he goes for a hefty shot, but this time chandra got the better of
him, he broke the middle stump the two bells flying, lloyd with the 80,000 odd
crowd looks with surprise. the stadium is silent for a moment then the roar comes
up. after that chandra had a devastating spell and had kalicharan and julien and
i think another wicket.
looking back at it i do not know who did it chandra or pataudi. but i still
feel the e***ment, and can see that great batsman lloyd coming back with his
head down wondering what happened.

p.s. this might have some factual errors, but that does not matter to me. this
is how i remember it and this is how i will remember it forever.

by **Zia Zaf** » Mon, 13 May 1991 10:25:38

Quote:

>So, great comebacks from retirement? A less spectacular one that comes to mind
>was of Pataudi Jr., to lead India against the West Indies in 1974-75. Another
>very memorable series.

>Atri Indiresan

Another comeback from retirement was of Asif Iqbal. He announced his
retirement in 1978. But when India came to play Pakistan, he came back.
In the first test of 1978-79 series which was played in Faisalabad, he scored
0 in the first innings but scored 104 in the second innings. I remebered
Cricketer's Pakistan's story with the headline "Cobra uncoils again".
In the second test in Lahore he hit the winning shot. And in the third
test he was instrumental in winning as he opened the innings for the
first time in his life and made valuable 46 runs befor getting out.

Zia Zafir

by **Nadeem Mogh** » Wed, 15 May 1991 05:11:37

Quote:

>One of the most remarkable features of the 77-78 series was Bobby Simpson's
>come back, as a captain, bowler and batsman, not to mention his fielding. As
>an Indian, I only wish he had remained in retirement :-). Does anyone have his
>detailed stats for that series?

>Atri Indiresan

Well, I don't have his exact stats, but I can tell you that he scored 531 runs
in the five tests, with the help of two hundreds. His highest was, I think,
176.

The biggest achievement for Bobby in this *** was his hundredth catch. He
had 96 when he had called it quits, but, thanks to Packer, he got a chance
to join the elite rank of only four other players:

NAME CON TESTS CATCHES

Colin Cowdrey Eng 114 120
Walter Hammond Eng 87 110
Ian Chappell Aus 75 105
Robert Simpson Aus 62 110
Garfield Sobers WI 93 109

After Simpson, many players have joined this list, namely:

NAME CON TESTS CATCHES

Ian Botham Eng
Greg Chappell Aus 87 122
Vivian Richards WI
Sunil Gavaskar Ind 125

Other players close on the target these days are:

NAME CON TESTS CATCHES

David Gower Eng
Allan Border Aus
Gordon Greenidge WI
Dul. Vengsarkar Ind
Javed Miandad Pak

Could someone please complete the list?

Nadeem Moghal

by **SXK..** » Sat, 18 May 1991 22:45:10

says:

Quote:

>I don't have statistics, but surely Ramadhin and Valentine of the great
>West Indian team with the three W's (1947?) must be in there a lot of
>times. Didn't they each bowl 90 overs in one innings (perhaps that's
>not match-winning, but it's memorable--if my memory is right).

those were the golden days of spin. unfortunately you don't see such spells of
spin bowling AWAY FROM HOME anymore. all spinners have their major triumphs at
home these days. an exception that comes to mind is that of nick cook of englan
d taking 11-83 vs pakistan in karachi(?). pakistan needed about 65 to win in
their second innings and they managed it with just 2 or 3 wickets in hand. cook
took 5-18 in the second innings. cook wasn't a very great spin bowler, tho' ,
he was lucky to get a really horrible pitch to bowl on.
The Thinker |
Penn State University |

Sport Today

Great spells by spin bowlers

Great spells by spin bowlers

Great spells by spin bowlers

Great spells by spin bowlers

Great spells by spin bowlers

Great spells by spin bowlers

Great spells by spin bowlers

Great spells by spin bowlers

Great spells by spin bowlers

Great spells by spin bowlers

Great spells by spin bowlers

Great spells by spin bowlers

Great spells by spin bowlers